Yebo! ("Yes" in Zulu)

Happy Valentines’ Day Everyone!

Yes, they do celebrate Valentine’s Day in Africa. We celebrated a couple days early combining it with a follow-up anniversary dinner last Thursday. We did go out on our anniversary to an Italian restaurant. It was nice but quite basic, so when another couple invited us to celebrate their anniversary with them, we decided to do it again. We ate at Chiefs Boma buffet. They have wonderful dishes – salads, vegetables such as squash, pumpkin, etc. cooked quite uniquely. The desserts such as cheesecake, cakes, and custard dishes were really good (too good)! There was quite a variety of rice, potatoes, etc. For the meat, you could choose from some prepared dishes or select the meat you wanted and they cooked it right on the grill. They had quite the meat. We had things like ostrich, impala, warthog, and a skewer of what they call the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino, and buffalo). They had traditional African drummers and the setting was just beautiful. The buffet was very reasonably priced so I’m sure we’ll go back again.

On our preparation day, we went to an African craft market. They all know who we are and some of them are pretty aggressive sales people. Negotiating is the custom. It’s hard to negotiate with these people because we want to get a fair price, but we also know that they really are quite poor. As we drive around there are lots of people on the street at the robots (traffic lights) walking by to sell you things, collect any trash, or just try and entertain you for a donation. It’s hard knowing how to handle these, because most of them are really in need, but it’s also somewhat risky rolling down your window, because there are some thieves and robbers out there.

We are quite busy at the area office. We are really seeing where we can help improve a number of the processes to save time and money. We are preparing for a stake conference in one of the suburbs called Roodepoort. They will have a visiting General Authority of the Church and they want to broadcast the meetings from Roodeport to Gabarone, Botswana. Very, very few people will be able to attend from Botswana (4 hours away) and another area that is about 2 hours away. The staff has a web casting solution they are going to try. Something like that would be quite straight forward in the US, but here it’s a different story. Lynn’s main assignment is to work with the stake leaders to understand their needs for conferences and other meetings and then see how to apply the technology to those needs. It’s going to be very interesting.

We are continuing our work with the addiction recovery group. We had another participant last Friday who is quite dedicated. He lives about an hour away. Debi is doing great working with them. Our hearts go out to these people as they work to overcome their challenges. It’s interesting how both of us have had some experiences with people like these—Debi at the school, and Lynn when a Bishop. However, this is new to us and we really need the Lord’s help in doing this. It is quite challenging. The local Church leaders we’re working with have also indicated that they want Debi to help in a couple other areas, so we’ll be learning how to do that.

A most unusual thing happened to one of the missionaries here. His name is Elder Gary Packer. He is actually our District Leader. One of his assignments is to represent the Church at the Condominium Association (The call it the Body Corporate) for Duke’s Court where we live. At the last meeting, a 70 year old lady really was quite disruptive, as she evidently has been in the past. They called security to remove her. In the process of her leaving she fell down. A few days later she filed assault charges and the police came at 5 am to arrest the president of the association and then the next day Elder Packer was arrested and hauled off to jail. Elder Packer described the jail as a room about the size of a small living room, with concrete floors. There were 16 men in the jail and 12 mats. The odor, etc. was really bad. He spent about 9 hours in jail and then was able to post bond. The next day they went to the judge. Fortunately there is video of the meeting and lots of witnesses so the judge indicated there was insufficient evidence for the charge. While in the jail Elder Packer talked with the other inmates. He taught them the Plan of Salvation and to sing “I am a Child of God”. He said they all wanted to pray with him before he left. What a way to handle a difficult situation! It’s a great blessing that the case is dismissed because Elder and Sister Packer are scheduled to go home in two weeks. He will then be coming back in July to be a mission president in DR Congo. The Lord is in charge of this work and somehow things seem to work out.

Once again, our hearts are full as we come home from Church. There was a baptism for a sister today and everyone is so kind and cheerful. We are really loving these people. Debi is starting to help with music lessons. I’m going to be helping the leaders, but the Bishop is so busy, that we haven’t had a chance to define the specifics yet.